Thursday, October 14, 2010

Language Barrier

While it seems strange to look at the calendar and realize that I've been here just a few days short of a month it seems so much longer, especially from a language standpoint. By this time in Italy I could form fairly coherent sentences in the present tense and was beginning to delve into communicating deeper thoughts. Though I try to keep telling myself that at least there I had the benefit of knowing enough of Spanish, its vocabulary and grammar, to give me a good head-start, it has provides little comfort.

I'm getting frustrated. True studying languages has always been sort of a love-hate relationship with me. More of a love the language, hate myself for not being able to pick it up easier. I remember having this problem the four years that I studied Spanish. My tenacity and hunger for new vocab and grammatical structures (a trait that endeared me to my teachers and won me a few class medals on the way) was matched by the frustration that came with my inability to speak fluently on my first try. Clearly I expected too much of myself then. I wish I could say, however, that wisdom and insight has come with age. When I went to Morocco for a month in college I jumped into Arabic with both feet, and though I was the best in the class there, I felt that I had failed because I couldn't communicate on even a basic level in the markets. The trend, of course, continued in Italy. While pleased with my self taught progress I was perturbed that I couldn't retain more, comprehend more, or communicate more.

When I think of being immersed in something, I think of a hot bath, pleasantly surrounded by bubbles and soothed by warm water; and in general I find being surrounded by something a good thing. It's comforting to be surrounded with love by my mom, and I love it when I'm surrounded by friends and enjoying a board game or a night at the movies. So, why then, do I feel so utterly cut off? Yes, I know that immersion is the best way to learn a language but what they never tell you is that you are going to feel so incredibly isolated until it all starts to make sense. I miss out on jokes, on stories, on interesting conversations, on boring conversations, in short on everything. And I've now been here long enough that no one wants to bother translating anything for me. In fact, I feel more and more like a shiny new toy that has lost some of its luster. Every time I'm around Tamaz I feel like he's just expecting me to be able to talk to him soon and is frankly getting bored waiting for me. Juju (Eka's mom) actually asked why I didn't know more Georgian yet the other night. She was only asking out of concern for me, but I understood where she was coming from. The worst part is that I feel like such a child. It's humbling and humiliating all at the same time. Everything has to be done for me, or explained to me.

And the truth is I want to be able to participate in things. I want to be able to express how I'm feeling other than "fine." I want to ask questions, I want to share stories, I want to be able to lounge around at night with the family to watch TV and understand what they're saying. And I am making progress, but Georgian just doesn't seem to stick in my head. The words are so different. It would be one thing if I was just trying to remember vocabulary, but I'm usually so focused on trying to negotiate how to get my mouth around four or five consonants in a row that I forget the actual word.

But until I can participate I just have to endure the isolating boredom. Yesterday I went with two other teachers to visit the family of one of my first graders. (It's a Georgian thing for class teachers to have these parent-teacher conferences at home at the beginning of the year.) Well the mom didn't speak any English so I had expressed my concerns for the girl to the other teachers and let them do all the talking. So I sat there for an hour and a half as they chatted. Now I have trouble sitting still in social gatherings as it is, an hour's conversation is about all I can handle, and that's when I can be actively involved. But even though I spent most of my time ardently listening to them (and successfully identifying the general topics they covered), I was bored. As time dragged on I felt myself zoning in and out more often...wondering if it would look bad if I kept eating the food on the table (for lack of anything else to do)...counting to 100 in Georgian...worrying that I wouldn't have correct change of the taxi...

No wonder they call it a barrier.

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